


Grey

by The_Artist_Formerly_Known_As_SatCat



Series: Reylo Week 2018 [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Color, F/M, Grey, Prompt Fic, Reylo Week 2018, natural death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Artist_Formerly_Known_As_SatCat/pseuds/The_Artist_Formerly_Known_As_SatCat
Summary: What do you think it will be like?she asks, her voice inside his head, her words for him alone.What will what be like?he replies, smoothing the skin of her hand with his thumb. The skin of her slender hand was so thin, now, the joints knobbly and the veins raised. The time had flowed so quickly.Death,she replies serenely, turning and settling back into his embrace.Created for the Reylo Week 2018 Monday prompt: Color





	Grey

**Author's Note:**

> ***This is a reposting of a deleted fic.***
> 
> Hey what's up some people have tracked me down to ask about some fics I wrote that they missed when I killed my account. By request, I am reposting some of them. I won't be checking for comments or anything else on them, since I don't really participate in the fandom much anymore.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy these in good health, and be kind to each other in the comments ok?!
> 
> ~(TAFKA)SC

They stand together on one of the porches at Varykino. She is tucked into him, leaning back against his chest, her head on his shoulder. She’s feeling contemplative, and he feels a question forming in her mind.

 _What do you think it will be like?_ she asks, her voice inside his head, her words for him alone.

 ** _What will what be like?_** he replies, smoothing the skin of her hand with his thumb. The skin of her slender hand was so thin, now, the joints knobbly and the veins raised. The time had flowed so quickly.

Everyone always warns you that ‘it’s gone before you know it’, but they had never really taken tomorrow for granted. They couldn’t, being caught up as they had been in the tides of war and intrigue, born with the power to reshape the galaxy in the most literal way. In the first decade or more, someone had always been gunning for them, so ‘gone before you know it’ was true on a daily basis. His young bride will always be that, to him, but time, it seems, has other plans.

She smiles, her eyes sparkling. She always knows his thoughts, as he knows hers. It had long since ceased to feel like an invasion of privacy, and more a true melding of two into one. Even so, they enjoy conversation sometimes, just for the sheer normalcy of it–normalcy was not a luxury they were able to savor for the first decade, or more, of their time together.

 _Death,_ she replies serenely, turning and settling back into his embrace.

He stares ahead, gazing into the gardens and beyond. When he was younger and in so much pain, it both terrified and exhilarated him to think about death. He never was good at surrendering himself to anything, except maybe to her. His mind flashed, spinning over a thousand moments like portraits, frozen in time. Fragments of dreams, misty and worn like old projections, of when he had dreamed of sand and heat and never known why; the elation he hadn’t understood the first time he cradled her in his arms; their first embraces; the little moments of domesticity that life afforded–cooking, reading, him watching her draw, her watching him ink. What would it feel like to be separated from that?

**_It feels…like it won’t be possible. How could I be separated from you? We haven’t existed apart from each other, not really, in decades._ **

She angles her head to look up at him, and her brow furrows.

 _But it will be. It_ must _be. Life is immortal because the living must die._ She pauses. _You’re afraid?_

 ** _Not afraid…_ **he corrects, although he knows she articulates his feelings better than he, most of the time. **_But it isn’t really something I’ve ever been able to wrap my head around. I guess we can talk about it afterward._** His attempt at lightening the mood isn’t lost on her, and she smiles, love blooming and casting a youthful glow across her weathered features.

 _True._ She turns her face back toward the gardens, and his arms tighten around her, just a little. _But only if you surrender, rather than struggle._

After many years, a great deal of training, and no few trials, they had been able to perform the rites. It had been experimental, of course; neither of them were “pure” Light Side Jedi. The fact that they had been able to live on Atollon for so long, with the Bendu as a sort of Grand Master, was testament to that. They had worked for so long to face and purge their fears and release their sufferings in order to be clear-minded and clear-willed enough to complete the ritual; if fear held him back when the moment came, would it undo everything?

She takes a deep breath, and turns to face him. _It will be as the Force wills it. We are the Balance, and the Force works through us._ Her light eyes bore into his dark ones, and she wills him to feel and understand how important it is to truly **know** that. He sighs, and she feels something in his ribs uncoil, knots loosening. She embraces him and closes her eyes, allowing another question to float to the surface of her mind.

_I keep thinking about…the instant of transition. The moment of letting go. What will that be like, do you think?_

He pulls away to look down at her, and she gazes up at him. He tilts his head to one side, a devious smile playing over his face, and he waggles his eyebrows. Suddenly, he’s a man in his prime again, not youthful but powerful, with lust and energy to burn. Her laugh is still sweet and bell-like, even after all this time, and she playfully swats his chest.

 _If it’s anything like THAT, what reason do_ you _have to worry_?

He leans over, and kisses her, and her hand comes up to cup his cheek. She presses her forehead to his. He’s careworn, but happy; of course, all that he had endured left scars of all kinds in all sorts of places, but they are testament to his inner Light and its tenacious hold on him. His broad frame is less robust than in decades past, but he’s still her Uneti–-her great, overgrown, Force-sensitive tree.

Ten years his junior, she used to worry about being left alone again, knowing that he was likely, all things considered, to become one with the Force before she did. After being so completely bonded with another, the idea that it could be snatched away from her had been horrifying to the sold-and-abandoned girl from nowhere. While she had been able to lean into that pain, and gradually steal its power over her, that fear had been the most persistent, stubborn, and difficult to release. It had risen up to challenge her in new ways almost constantly for so many years.

Ultimately, she had been able to fully release that fear due to the nature of the bond itself, thus teaching her one of the most important lessons about the Force: the Light and the Dark are simply different forms of impulse, different ways of responding to any given thing, rather than being forces (so to speak) of their own. To detach from those impulses, understand them, and consciously choose a response that is based in that understanding was the path that the Galaxy had needed both of them to walk, together, for so long. It was the path they had taught to others for almost thirty years, in the school on Atollon. The truth of their bond was this: after having been bound to one another so closely for such a time and under such a destiny, neither of them would survive the death of the other. They had spoken the truth all those years ago, in a tiny, miserably wet hut on Ahch-To: neither of them was alone, nor would they ever be alone again. Neither the fear nor the impossible emotional detachment were necessary.

Now, older than any of their parents had ever been allowed to be, they waited for the Force to beckon them back into itself. They were waves, whose crests and peaks had come and gone; waves hurtling toward the shore to crash and un-become and be pulled back into the vast ocean of which they had always been a part, despite the illusion of separateness. They had felt the threads of their lives being drawn more tightly, readying for the cut, and had sought the Bendu’s blessing, leaving the school they had created in the hands of their chosen successors, some of the first Masters under their tutelage. They had returned to Naboo, to his ancestral home, to spend their remaining time together–time that had run its course.

 _Do you feel that?_ she asked. It was a feeling like welcoming an old friend.

 ** _Yes,_ **he replied. **_Is it time?_ **Was he asking her, or the Force itself? Did it matter? He pulled her to him more tightly. He felt lighter, almost dizzily so. Looking down at her, he could see wonderment on her face, the look of girlish glee that she would get on fixing a mechanical problem or making a breakthrough in her training.

**_I want you to join me. Please._ **

This time, she didn’t hesitate to take his hand.

 


End file.
